


Executor

by cobweb_diamond



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:03:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobweb_diamond/pseuds/cobweb_diamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘And what do I do for a living? I wait to inherit. Richard and I are both planning to profit from someone’s death; my way just takes longer.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Executor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oshun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oshun/gifts).



Courier errands were usually reserved for the apprentices, but when handling Tremontaine affairs a little more discretion was required.

Kirkaldy was used to this kind of work. The way people were talking at the moment it was as if no young Lordship had ever run off to Riverside before. But Alec Campion was hardly the first prodigal son ever to return to the Hill, and he wouldn't be the last. Kirkaldy could name at least five people currently holding council seats for whom he had provided this particular service. Campion hadn’t quite been welcomed back into the fold as of yet, but he would be. And Kirkaldy knew, secondhand rather than from personal experience, that a life of scandal required at least _some_ financial backing. This would hold especially true if the rumours were correct and Campion was keeping the swordsman St Vier.

Campion’s reply to his original letter had been almost mocking in its brevity. “ _Find me in Riverside. They all know me here_.” Sealed with the full Tremontaine crest, an ostentatious reminder that Kirkaldy would have to go to Riverside whether he wanted to or not. In the absence of the Duchess, her legal representation was obliged to at least _inform_ her erstwhile heir that he was still due his allowance. The Duchess Tremontaine’s involvement had been tangential at best, communicating only via short, businesslike notes (also sealed with the Tremontaine crest; Kirkaldy found himself beseiged by them from all sides), carried to and from her country estates by mail carriage. _Make sure to take care of Alec,_ she’d written, as if Alec Campion was an unruly child and not a young man fresh from derailing a political coup. As if they were on first-name terms. Although Alec, it seemed, was making an effort to act as childishly as possible, so perhaps there was some truth to it.

After a day of being directed from one dingy Riverside inn to another, Kirkaldy finally tracked Campion down sometime after sundown. The boy was as lanky as Kirkaldy remembered, but had cut off the long hair he’d worn during his university days. In the orange candle-light of the inn, Kirkaldy doubted that he even would have recognised Campion if not for the gleam of his rings as he tossed dice and spinning-tops across the table towards some very suspect-looking individuals in moth-eaten overcoats and stained neck-cloths. Kirkaldy, preferring loftier pursuits than dice, didn’t recognise the game, but it appeared that some kind of altercation was inevitable. All the players were talking over one another, every one of them convinced that the uneven surface of the table was skewed in the others’ favour. Campion was doing nothing to diffuse the situation. He sat slouched in his stool, sipping from a wooden tankard of what was presumably ale. In his forty years of dealing with the gentry, this was by far the least romantic youthful rebellion Kirkaldy had ever witnessed. But Alexander Campion had always been perverse, even as a child.

‘Milord?’

Campion looked up, ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. The other Riversiders at Campion’s table, even the ones who only seconds earlier had looked like they were tempted to give him a solid punch to the gut, were looking on in faintly malicious curiosity.

‘May I speak with you somewhere more private?’ said Kirkaldy and, because it had been a long day and Campion was somehow managing to exude pure superiority without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow, added, ‘Since apparently _everyone_ knows you in Riverside.’ Campion had always riled the impatient father in Kirkaldy. Heaven's only knew what it must have been like to _raise_ the boy.

 _‘Well, if it’s so _very_ private as all that,’ said Campion conspiratorially, and stood up like a cormorant shaking its wings dry, nearly elbowing two of his bench-mates in the face. He tossed a few coins onto the table to join the dice and wooden spinning-tops. ‘Shall we?’_

Kirkaldy hadn’t noticed before, but Campion’s eyes were bright and half-closed with drink. A large proportion of his clumsiness must be down to drunkenness, not that you’d know it from his crisp Hill consonants.

‘This should be very quick,’ said Kirkaldy, once they were out of earshot. He took the papers from the oilcloth they’d been wrapped in inside his cloak, and showed them to Campion. ‘All that’s required is a signature from yourself and a second witness, and then you should be able to send someone to pick up your allowance each month.’

‘How wonderful,’ said Campion. ‘Diane really does think of everything. The witness will be yourself, I suppose?’

‘No, I’m Tremontaine’s executor. Will one of these gentleman be able to do the honours?’ He felt proud to have kept his expression blank on the word “gentleman”.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t trust any of them with my drink, never mind the family coffers,’ said Campion airily, not appearing to care who heard.

‘Do you have a secretary, then?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Campion, and rolled his eyes. ‘He’s on holiday just now, along with the butler and the scullery maid. Say, will any signature do?’

‘You just said that none of these people were your friends.’

‘I do have _a_ friend,’ said Campion reproachfully. ‘But he’s not what you’d describe as... literate.’

No wonder the Duchess hadn’t wanted to handle this herself. ‘Any distinguishing mark should suffice,’ Kirkaldy, wondering what godforsaken wretch Campion was going to dig up for this.

‘Splendid!’ said Campion with what appeared to be genuine satisfaction, and a minute later Kirkaldy was back outside in the rain, attempting to keep up with Campion’s long-legged stride without so much as a linkboy to light the way.

‘Who is it you’re using for the witness?’ Kirkaldy had his suspicions that Campion was the sort to lead him to a whorehouse out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

‘Richard St Vier,’ Campion called out, still striding ahead, gait just a little unsteady on the slick cobbles. ‘You may have heard of him?’

‘Your swordsman.’

‘Oh yes,’ he said, sounding amused. ‘I have him on retainer. Much like you and the Duchess, I assume. Although of course Richard isn’t my errand boy.’

Kirkaldy was aware that his patience was being tried on purpose, but after a day of chilled rainwater dripping down his collar and a gradual but significant increase in the number of sniggers he heard muffled as he walked out of each tavern and into the next, he was finally starting to lose his temper. ‘And I suppose St Vier’s chosen career is more laudable? He kills people for money.’

‘And what do I do for a living? I wait to inherit. Richard and I are both planning to profit from someone’s death; my way just takes longer.’

The long toes of his shoes chose that moment to tangle together, sending Campion sprawling into the gutter. He displayed a moment of wide-mouthed shock before appearing to realise his place, and proceeded to burst out laughing as the malodorous street water soaked quickly through his shirtsleeves.

‘ _This_ is what you’ve been doing?’ said Kirkaldy, aiming to sound biting. This ungainly, sodden drunk was a far cry from the sarcastic, ill-tempered university boy he recalled. ‘Maybe if you’d run off to Riverside at fifteen instead of twenty it would have seemed like more of a rebellion. At least have some originality. I’d have thought you’d value that, at least.’ He offered no hand as Campion struggled to his feet, sopping clothes dragging down with silt and rainwater to cling to his sides. ‘Is this really what you want to look back on when you’re an old man?’

‘Ah, well,’ said Campion, flicking water off his cuffs as best he could. ‘That’s one of the rare things that Richard and I have in common. Neither of us have any intention of ever reaching old age.’ He walked even faster after that, Kirkaldy conscious of the comedic pace his shorter legs were no doubt taking in order to keep up.

At last Campion stopped in front of one of the decaying old Riverside townhouses, curlicues sloping off into moss and grime, the whole building awash with rivulets cascading down from the high gutters. He didn’t knock, just lifted the latch on the main door and went in, stamping his boots ineffectually on the shoe-scraper set just inside the doorway. ‘If he’s not in I suppose you’ll just have to wait,’ he said. ‘Or come back another day. You can wait with Marie, if you like. Our landlady. She’s a splendid conversationalist. And a whore, of course. I’m certain you’ll be able to find something in common.’

Grinding his teeth, Kirkaldy followed Campion up the stairs to another set of rooms, these ones with an actual lock on the door. Campion swung it open with the same careless attitude as before, dropping his wet cloak on the floor.

Kirkaldy had witnessed a few duels in his time, but they had mostly been showy affairs. Fist-fights, of course, he’d seen more of. Many of them taking place in his office, stemming from inheritance disputes. Matters of love and honour were suitable reasons for hiring a swordsman, but when it came to financial quarrels a fist to the face always seemed to be infinitely more satisfying.

This swordsman, in any case, was not what he had been expecting. St Vier cut a compact figure, slim blade in hand when Campion first burst through the door. It was almost as if Campion had _wanted_ to surprise him, but the weapon was lowered at once, sweat glistening on the swordsman’s brow. He wasn’t a particularly tall man; in fact he seemed very ordinary apart from the focus in his eyes, the light way he gripped the sword and angled it safely down towards the floor. His expression smoothed from welcoming openness to something more shuttered as soon as he spotted Kirkaldy over his friend’s shoulder.

‘Alec,’ he said, barely out of breath despite the fact that he’d evidently been exercising for quite some time, his thin cotton shirt soaked half through with sweat.

‘Oh, was I late for something again?’ enquired Campion.

‘Yes, yesterday afternoon,’ said St Vier, but he didn’t sound particularly put-out about it. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Diane’s executor. Or Tremontaine’s, rather,’ he added, with a curl to the lip. ‘He’s here to sign over my _allowance_.’

‘I thought you didn’t get that any more,’ said St Vier. Kirkaldy was beginning to feel a little puzzled since the swordsman didn’t seem overly interested in this new financial development. Perhaps they _were_ lovers, just like all the rumours said. Considering what he’d seen over the course of this evening, Kirkaldy would have expected Campion to have found himself a priest or a streetwalker rather than a mere swordsman, if only for the shock value.

‘No, it turns out that Diane can’t control quite _everything_ she wants to,’ said Campion, as St Vier cleaned the tip of his practise sword and began to wrap it in felt strips. ‘So now I’m free to keep us both in the manner to which we’d like to become accustomed.’

‘I dread to think,’ said St Vier drily.

‘Milord Tremontaine wants you to act as witness when he signs,’ said Kirkaldy, and took out the papers from inside his coat. The rain had worked its way inside the oilskin, a little, but it didn’t seem too bad. ‘You may both look it over beforehand, of course,’ he said, before remembering what Campion had said about illiterates. It was odd to think that someone as well known -- in some circles, anyway -- as the swordsman St Vier was unable to read or write. No doubt an attractive quality to Campion, who seemed relish oddity and imperfection.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Campion, and scrawled a signature over the back page, getting inkblots on his fingers. When he passed the pen to St Vier, all the swordsman managed was a clumsy “STV”, the lower half of the S trailing off where he’d lost control of the pen. He showed no signs of shame over it and handed it calmly over to Kirkaldy once he was done, his expressino clear. For a moment Kirkaldy was curious, but any interest in the city’s most infamous swordsman was far outweighed by his desire to change out of his wet clothes and, hopefully, avoid speaking to Alexander Campion for another three years.

Once the ink was dry, he folded the papers carefully back up into the oilskin and tucked it into his inside pocket. When he looked up St Vier was watching him from next to the door, still and silent as a rock. Campion seemed to have lost interest in him already, and was gazing out the window into the rain.

‘If there’s nothing else -- ?’ asked Kirkaldy, dredging together his remaining hints of professional deference.

‘If there’s anything else, I’ll be sure to contact the Duchess,’ said Campion, a glint in his eye, and swung the door open in a parody of chivalry. The last thing Kirkaldy saw before he left Campion’s semi-squalid townhouse was the white flash of teeth as the swordsman grinned at Campion, Kirkaldy already well on the way to being forgotten.

* * *

Once the Duchess’ man had left, a trail of disapproval and raindrops in his wake, Alec flopped down onto the couch with his sleeves smearing mud onto the faded upholstery.

‘I didn’t think you’d take it,’ said St Vier.

‘What, the money? Why? _Principles_?’

‘As if I’d ever accuse you of such a thing,’ said the swordsman, amused. ‘But you'd been leading him on for days. I thought you were going leave him to the dogs.’

‘Hah. Then Diane would just send someone else. She’s worried I’ll take her to court, and she doesn’t want the embarrassment.’

‘I don’t know,’ St Vier said mildly. ‘The last time I saw you in court, you seemed to rather enjoy it.’

‘Bloodless litigation wouldn't be nearly so fun,’ Alec answered, shifting his legs over to make room for St Vier to sit on the couch as well. ‘And anyway, it wouldn’t do to repeat myself.’

‘You’re sure to spend it all on dice and candles, in any case,’ said St Vier comfortably, letting Alec’s murky rainwater join the sweat on his shirt as Alec moved his arm along the back of the couch, allowing St Vier the liberty of shifting closer.

‘It’ll take more than that to fritter away the family fortunes,’ said Alec, closing his eyes. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to try harder. How do you feel about a sword with rubies in the handle, like Marc Bailie?’

‘Unenthusiastic. Mark Bailie’s barely even a duellist, he’s a showman. And it’s not called a handle, it’s the hilt. Or Possibly the pommel. Either way, not really a place for rubies.’

‘You see, that’s why you’d never be at home on the hill,’ said Alec lazily. ‘There’s _always_ a place for rubies.’

‘Give them to Marie,’ said St Vier with a smile, and for once Alec permitted him a kiss out here and well before bed, a slim arm wrapped around St Vier’s waist keeping him from falling onto the muddy-footprinted floor.


End file.
